Let's Sleep and Forget This
by TheCivilState
Summary: Rome, Paris Tokyo.  Do you remember?


_How low_ _are you willing to go_ _before you reach all_ _your selfish goals._

"I'm leaving you, Nik." He turned to see Rebekah, harsh eyes and jagged edges staring at him the way she always stared at him. Like he was a monster and she was some sort of saint. Like it was all his fault.

"That's what you always say," he said, "You never leave and if you do, you always come back." Elijah stepped into his line of sight, coming to stand by Rebekah and offering a casual arm for support.

"This time, Niklaus," the eldest brother said, "We mean it." That's when he noticed the suitcases stacked casually behind him. Vampires didn't pack. They didn't make calculated travel plans and pack accordingly. They left when they wanted and compelled what they needed when they arrived. Packing meant planning. Planning meant…

"No," he said and then screamed it so they'd understand they weren't allowed to leave, "No! You do not get to leave me!" He rushed at them with every intention of breaking their legs long enough to find the daggers his mother had hidden somewhere in the house. He'd put them back into their coffins- _forever, this time- _and they would never leave him. They couldn't. They were a family. Families were meant to stick together.

"Did it ever occur to you, Nik, that your obsession with our family being whole again is what tore it apart? Did you ever stop to think that instead of being the person to unite us, you would be the one to ruin us?"

_you're feeding a monster,_

A crimson river ran down his chin as he drank from the heart like it was a… what was the new age invention? a juice box? It was like a personal river Styx had been formed in his honor, the blood from the bodies he had piled up before him like a monument was spilling across the floor of his apartment. He was flooding the place with blood and laughed at the mental image that came to mind should the landlord discover such a gruesome thing.

"_I'm terribly sorry," _Klaus would say,_ "But I am afraid there's some flooding in my apartment. Could you call a plumber?"_

He laughed and laughed at his own cleverness believing that should he keep laughing, perhaps the walls would absorb the sound and play it back to him. Perhaps he could convince himself he wasn't alone. Perhaps.

_this means war,_ _this means war._

"Klaus, stop!" He threw Caroline into the nearest wall and pinned her, considering for a moment tearing off her hand. It was a pretty little hand and not even her dominant one and if she were smart enough, she'd figure out how to reattach it. But then again, she was a blonde and they were living in an era where there was a bevy of dumb blonde jokes. Perhaps she wouldn't be so smart.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, shoving him back and he let her. He didn't have to, but he let her because his eyes were focused on the pretty little wrist attached to her pretty little hand. So attached, that he didn't really notice her dominant hand rising to smack him until her fist connected with his jaw and he felt bone crack. Alright, perhaps she hadn't been meaning to smack him, but rather sock him with a killer right hook and break his jaw. He really wasn't paying attention to important things tonight, much more caught up in the sparkling bracelet around her pretty little wrist.

"You're wearing the bracelet I gave you," he said, remembering how many times he had returned it to her only to have her throw it back in his face. He had kept count, he honestly had.

"Well, yeah," she said, "I figured it was better to wear it so you'd stop trying to return it to me. I mean geez, you were starting to freak my mom out." He watched her casually flip her blonde hair over her shoulder- a bloodied shoulder to be precise and that was all his doing. Her foot tapped against the cement as her arms folded over her chest.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked again. Again, because this had been the first question she'd asked upon spotting him at the Grill earlier that evening. It was the question he had responded to by dragging her into the nearest alley and tossing her about like a rag doll. He hadn't hurt her too badly and she was confident he wouldn't kill her. She didn't know why she had been so confident, but she had. It was like, intuition or something.

"Please don't hit me like a piñata this time," she said when his hands curled into tight fists as she repeated her question _again._

"What's wrong with you?" His shoulders dropped and he looked up at her. She was stubborn and no beating would change that.

"According to my family," he said, "Everything."

"Oh, Nik-"

"Don't Caroline. Don't."

_Someday you'll be up to your knees_ _in the shit you seed._

He sat in a chair. A lone chair in an empty room and if he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was a king holding court. A dead court. A very, very dead court.

Around him were strewn the bodies of his hybrids and Elena- _doppleganger wench indeed- _had awoken a baby vampire sometime during the night. It appeared his family not only wanted him without them, but they wanted him without anyone. He imagined it had been Elijah to convince Elena to make the transition and Kol and Finn had no doubt reveled in the idea of slaughtering his hybrids. Rebekah as well. He recognized her handiwork on a few of the bodies.

He was alone. Completely and utterly alone and because Elena was better than Tatia and Katerina and hadn't gone and had a child, he was going to remain alone forever. The doppleganger line was finished. He had no more supernatural blood that would ensure his hybrid creations would live. He was alone. No daggered bodies in their coffins, no Elijah forever by his side, no Rebekah to taunt him. He couldn't even compel Stefan again, Stefan who had wisely taken to the daily regime of consuming vervain. They all had.

Maybe he could compel himself to forget. But no, his siblings would simply compel him to remember.

They liked him alone.

_Where to_ _will you relocate_ _now that it's war._

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, but Klaus didn't move. There wasn't much point in moving when his siblings would just follow and stab him again and again until he was full of holes. Then they would leave as his body healed and his soul was filled with more holes. Family was good for leaving holes.

The footsteps stopped and he lifted his head to look out across the sea of bodies to see black boots attached to denim clad legs that supported the rest of a calm and collected body sporting vibrantly blonde hair.

"What are you doing here?" he asked tiredly. Tired. Too tired to tack on his signature, "love." Too tired to call her what she deserved to be called. Beautiful, radiant, love. Too tired. Just tired.

"Rome, Paris, Tokyo," she said, ticking off each on her fingers, "Do you remember?" He remembered. That was the first night she threw the bracelet back in his face; a bracelet still hanging from her pretty little wrist that was attached to a pretty little hand that was reaching out to him over the sea of dead hybrids he'd created because he didn't want to be alone.

He took her hand. She made sure he was never alone again.

**a/n: **I like my Klaroline, which I affectionately shorten to Klare sometimes. Sadly, I don't own them, but I still think they're adore and the PTB better not screw them up.

Fave, flame, faint.

_[song fic inspired by 'How Low' by José González.]_

_oxox_


End file.
